Work Text:
Whenever Sviatoslav Richter comes to Tours in the Loire Valley, he feels at ease. At ease, not at home -- there is a difference. In Tours he founded and directs a music festival from country churches and a granary, while in the USSR he drifted from philharmonic halls of mega-cities to bare gyms of tiny towns, performing on that Yamaha piano which has, practically, become a part of his body. For all this drifting, he is rarely home -- if "home" means the two baby grand pianos in a Moscow apartment whose windows overlook the conservatory buildings -- and he never feels comfortable until he sits down by the keyboard, or some music comes onto the radio. There isn't much else for him to care for in life, anyway.
But Tours! This place is different. Since the founding of Festival de La Grange de Meslay, Richter not only got used to French speakers calling him "Slava", but he also got accustomed to "running the show," in the idioms of capitalist show business. He never made a phone call or wrote an invitation without a clear purpose: what pieces he wanted this conductor to perform, what programs he wished that soloist to offer, what ensembles he wanted to bring to this idyllic town for a few days of music-making...He always had these concerns in mind, and articulated them to the festival's staff and helpers so their pens, papers, and typewriters could keep track.
Now, every piece of the music festival was set in place. Only one thing was encroaching upon Richter's sense of ease by the minute: the London Sinfonietta was at the granary already, but not their conductor.
"He was with us just then; he should be here anytime," the ensemble's concertmaster ensured Richter.
"Does Monsieur Boulez know," Richter's festival secretary looked at his notepad, then at Richter and the concertmaster, "That he has a photo op at the barn over there?"
"Oh, I don't know. But I'm sure he'll be back in time," the concertmaster said, "Now if You don't mind, I'll get ready for the rehearsal. Mr. Richter -- we definitely need the soloist, so please don't be late!"
Richter needed no reminder. After all, he volunteered himself as the soloist in Mozart's c minor piano concerto, when Boulez made the counter-offer to conduct Mozart, Haydn, and Purcell -- how strange, Richter thought, is Maestro Boulez not avant-garde anymore? -- instead of Bartok and Stravinsky.
"Mozart is avant-garde. Haydn too," Boulez insisted. So Richter, finding nothing disagreeable in the counter-proposed program, volunteered to solo for the Mozart concerto, and Boulez agreed. Over the statics on a long-distance phone-line, the Boulez-Richter conductor-soloist duo for La Grange de Meslay of 1971 was officially formed.
Well, if the conductor is not here, I have no reason to stay. Richter thought, and decided to take a walk by himself. Leaving the granary, he circled to the building's backside and made a shortcut onto a dirt path bracing the edge of a forest. Richter knew this path goes to a big lake in the shade. Water and shade are always welcomed in early July, and they look even more appealing now that Richter is contemplating to hide away from the orchestra rehearsal.
Conventional wisdom goes that the more you seek something, the more it eludes you; and the moment you give up the chase, it turns up at your door. An exceptional pianist Richter was, he was no exception to such wisdom. He had hardly walked a minute on a well-trodden path into the woods, than someone called him out:
"Herr Richter! Is the rehearsal here?" The guttural "R"s were muffled by leaves drooping from erect trees, but no doubt the speaker was approaching from afar. Suit jacket on his arm, tie loosened, vest unbuttoned, from a darker part of the forest, Boulez strolled forward on an unmarked trail, and stopped at two trees' distance from Richter.
"Yes! Ahhh...My piano is heavy," Richter responded, his hands pushing against invisible weights in thin air, "Do you want the piano positioned here, Maestro?"
Boulez laughed. "The orchestra needs a workout! Let's get them here!" Some startled birds flew off, apparently trying to relay the executive decision to the musicians still in the granary.
Richter joined him in laughter, and the duo started making their way out of the woods. Unbeknownst to them, at this minute, cold sweat was rolling down the back of Richter's festival secretary: both the conductor and the soloist are now missing!
"Are You sure Monsieur Boulez will keep punctuality?" After pointing another photographer to the barn, the secretary, in a distressed tone, asked the concertmaster.
"Yes he will," The concertmaster answered, then roamed out to puff some smoke in the sun. Just as the secretary was passing out from panicking -- 2 minutes till the photo op but the stars are still nowhere in sight! -- the concertmaster poked his head in: "He's coming. The soloist too."
The secretary rushed out and saw that, in broad daylight, two men in formal business suits were running towards the granary on uneven grassland. No, only the taller one had the full three-piece on, and he was just catching up with the runner who had the jacket in his arm. They seemed to be running away from a lakeside forest.
"Photo op! Photo! Op! There! There!" The secretary shouted out, and waved arms to the direction of the barn.
The photo op was on time. But while Boulez stopped by the granary first to tighten the tie, button up the vest, put on the suit, and comb over the few remaining hair he had, Richter went straight to the barn with grass bits still on his shoes and pants -- an obvious ode to the photo-op's prop: a mechanical grass-cutter with two separate handle rails. When Boulez strode in, they stood exactly one grass-cutter apart, put their hands on the same handle rail in its upper and lower sections, held the machine upright, and posed for 30 seconds of relentless shutter-clicking and witty one-liners. And the press was mighty satisfied.
The orchestra did not wait long, either. According to the concertmaster's watch, Boulez stepped onto the podium at exactly 2pm, took off his jacket and vest, hung them on the podium rail, and said: "Good afternoon! Let's start. Mozart c minor piano concerto, number 24, K491," Then he raised his arms, and Richter sat down at the piano.
The Mozart rehearsal went swimmingly, and soon Richter was off-stage, watching the Haydn and Purcell rehearsals. There are important things he must say and give to Boulez in a private conversation, and he knows that he must bide his time. The best opportunity, it seems, would be after the concert, when the crowd disperses and leaves them alone. But Richter was also getting impatient: he has waited for too long.
Richter had the right idea, but he miscalculated the timing. The concert was received so well that a sizeable minority of the audience, excited and curious, stayed behind to catch a conversation with either the conductor or the soloist. That evening, anyone asking for Richter's autograph got one. Richter would scribble, "To so-and-so, thank You for coming to La Grange de Meslay !" and exchange some pleasantries with the requester in a hushed voice, which was often overpowered by boisterous laughter from the small crowd at Boulez's corner.
When the granary floor was finally cleared of the last audience member, sunlight still lingered in the sky. The conductor-soloist duo walked into the empty festival ground, and Boulez remarked, "That was a good workout!"
Richter did not banter back. He cut directly into the subject matter. "Herr Boulez, I have a letter for You...No, I can't talk about it, because I don't know what's in the letter...Because, no, it's not my letter, and I must give it to You...Maria Yudina, a late friend of mine, and an esteemed colleague...Thank You...I know that You exchanged letters. We found this on her desk, after she died last year, in her apartment...You are welcome." In slow motion, Richter produced an envelope from his suit pocket.
It was a plain white, sealed envelope, and a little crumbled; a corner of its flap was clipped and had no glue on the backside. The recipient's first and last name had been written in cursive hands, then crossed out, and re-written in block letters. An address in Germany followed. The envelope passed from Richter to Boulez, and Boulez peeled the letter open.
By the last lights of a summer day, a piece of paper was unfolded, and revealed itself in perfect French:
Beloved Monsieur Pierre Boulez, respected artist, and the kindest man!
Thank you for the autographed score ! It was a marvelous sonata, and the music has become rather an obsession for me. The score you sent me earlier, Le Marteau sans maître, I lent it to my friend Dmitri Shostakovich for some time. When he returned it, he praised your music in the most enthusiastic manner. He is as obsessed as I am, if not more so!
How should I relate to you the emotions in our hearts? Your return to the city, for some years now, has been the favorite desire of every Moscow resident who had luck to hear the music you conducted. You cannot image: the new music you brought, has created all the wonderful effect and happiness on me and my friends. The great joy your sweet response produced upon me, is the most remarkable. I hope that we can see you again and many times in Moscow, and bring to us pleasures and emotions with your wonderful concerts, to which there are no equal we can compare. Please do come back soon, dear maestro!
Yours forever,
Maria Yudina
P.S. I hope that you would not mind me calling you "beloved Monsieur Pierre" in the future, for you are so young, and beloved because you really are one.
P.P.S. Thank you for the new address! I shall send all future letters to your residence in Germany, then.
P.P.S. My friend Denis was wondering if you would send us some photos, photos where we shall distinguish your charming profile, maybe with a few words or an inscription to them.
Richter was wondering what took so long for Boulez to read a one-page letter, when Boulez broke the silence: "I am sorry." And before Richter could ask, Boulez handed over the letter, walked a few steps to the side, and stood there motionless. He seemed to be fascinated by wall laterns lighting up in nearby farmhouses.
When Richter finished the letter, he thought he truned blind, until he saw Boulez walk back in the faint overflow of farmhouse lights. He returned the letter to its rightful recipient, saw the paper being folded and tucked into the original envelope, and said: "Yeah, that was a good workout."
"You like workouts? Great! There's more," Boulez pointed to the farmhouses, "Which ones are we running to?"
They both laughed, and began walking to the village center together. Richter related to Boulez that he rather liked the Mozart concerto K491 so he didn't mind it being a workout, but his personal favorite is K488, the A major piano concerto. Incidentally, it was also the piano concerto that got Maria Yudina into trouble with Stalin in 1953, several days before Stalin died.
"Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night and think, what if I had been the soloist on the radio that evening? What would I have done? I don't know. I don't know if I would do anything at all. I don't know if I could do what she did, or something very brave," Richter said, as they passed between a bale of hay and a tree with a latern, "But if we ever told Masha that she was brave, she'd laugh and say, 'You would not do what I did, but you would do something else very brave.' She was very courageous, perhaps the bravest person I know. "
"I heard about the troubles she had. I have no doubt, that Ms. Yudina was a very brave artist," Boulez said, "A strong and brave artist."
"I'm sure she would have loved to play the A major concerto with You."
"Ah, Herr Richter! We did the c minor concerto well enough! We honored the memory of Madame Yudina. Thank You for the letter, by the way. I cherish it very much."
"Herr Boulez --- would You mind, if I call You 'Monsieur Pierre' from now on?--"
"That's absurd!" Boulez gasped and feigned a horrified face before laughing out, "Just 'Pierre' will be good."
"--And 'Slava' for me is sufficient," Richter finished his request.
The lights were becoming brighter from all directions; they were closing in on the village center. Under an inn sign, the duo stopped and turned to search for a sight of the granary, but the granary was already shrouded by night. Another day at the Festival de La Grange de Meslay has ended.
"I'm grateful that you have come," Richter said, "Thank you, Pierre."
"My pleasure, Slava," Boulez responded, "Anytime."
Then they parted ways at the country inn where Boulez was lodged at; Richter wished the conductor safe travels to his further engagements.
It was not until the end of July that Pierre Boulez returned to his house by the Black Forest. Since March, he has been drifting from continent to continent and band to band. Cleveland, London, New York, Rome, Vienna, Tours...He has not spent one night in his own bed for 4 months. Thanks to his new secretary, incoming mails and telegrams were not piling up at the doors again; every correspondence ended up in a box on his desk. Some letters came from his teachers Messiaen and Loriod, some from the French Ministry of Culture, some from BBC symphony orchestra, and some from young composers at Darmstadt and other places. A few letters with Cyrilic post-stamps stood out: they were written in perfect French, asking if he could send some autographed photos to Moscow's avant-garde circles.
Boulez put away the letters, and wandered into his living room. He stopped at the Venetian mirror, the only relic from the house's past that he decided to keep. He didn't remember exactly why, maybe a strange sentimentality or sudden impulse -- neither of which belonged to his temperament. The mirror's arabesque golden frame served no practical function at all, and was a bizarre companion to the straight lines and simple shapes of the pale carpet, the Barcelona chairs, and the Kandinsky paintings on the wall.
He saw himself in the mirror, and looked into his own eyes -- as he would do later in his life many times. In the mirror, he was an accomplished composer, conductor, chief of orchestras, a great artist making his mark in history, and barely 46. He held gaze with his mirror image for a while, and lowered his eyes to a dog-eared envelope in his hand. He held the envelope between his palms, and pressed them so hard together that he felt the paper was searing onto his skin. He wasn't aware, but when he looked up again, a broad grin already surfaced on his face.
Then he turned away from the ornate mirror, walked past the Cesca chairs and Wagenfeld floor lamps, and came to the window. The forest outside bathed in the afternoon sun, some tree-tops were almost shimmering, but the window was still in the shade. He looked out into this bright nature; the letter stayed between his palms, and the grin remained on his face.
Perhaps I need to conduct Mozart more, especially the A major piano concerto. Perhaps I'd do it in Moscow, too. Boulez thought.
Meanwhile, in Moscow, in an apartment overlooking the conservatory buildings, Sviatoslav Richter and Dmitri Shostakovich were drinking and chatting away.
"Masha wrote a love letter, so to speak, and you delivered it by hand?" Shostakovich was giggling so hard that he almost curled like a cube on the couch. Richter wasn't sure what Shostakovich found so funny.
"It was not a love letter," Richter said, "I read it. It never said "I love you" or anything like that."
"Of course it was a love letter! Slava, you know this." Shostakovich quieted down and sat up straight, "In the matter of love, negation is truth. People don't say 'I love you' all the time, when they are absolutely in love."
"You make bad jokes today, Dmitri Dmitrievich." Richter insisted. "It was really not a love letter. Not at all."
Shostakovich grabbed the last glass of vodka from the side table. "If I ever meet Monsieur Boulez in this life, so to speak." He took a gulp and continued, "If that happens, I shall ask him about Masha's love letter." He finished the vodka, and grinned at Richter.
"You'll love him," Richter said, "I enjoyed playing with him." And I hope I'll see Pierre again very soon, Richter thought.